Legacy's second reissue of Texas Flood, the 1983 debut from Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, now expands the album to two CDs, adding a complete concert given at Ripley's Music Hall in Philadelphia on October 20, 1983, four months after the record was released. On the first disc, an early version of "Tin Pan Alley (aka Roughest Place in Town)" is added to the original album but that is the only carry-over from the 1999 expansion. That disc also had three live cuts, but those were taken from a different 1983 concert, so this 2013 30th Anniversary Edition offers something completely new: an entire radio broadcast featuring SRV and Double Trouble at the peak of their power. The set has few surprises…

Stevie Ray Vaughan and his band Double Trouble formed the most impressive blues act of the 1980s, which made Vaughan's death in a helicopter crash at the start of the '90s all the more tragic. He grew up in Dallas, the younger brother of Jimmie Vaughan (cofounder of the Fabulous Thunderbirds). Stevie began playing in clubs at 12, and by 17 had dropped out of high school and moved to Austin. There followed years of struggling until April 23, 1982, when Vaughan and his group, Double Trouble, played a private audition for the Rolling Stones in New York. The gig led to an invitation to appear at the Montreux Jazz Festival, at which Vaughan was seen by David Bowie, who hired him to play guitar on his Let's Dance album, and Jackson Browne, who offered the free use of his recording studio. Vaughan took up that offer after being signed by legendary talent scout John Hammond to Epic, recording his debut album, Texas Flood, in the fall of 1982…

While 2002's Essential Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble is the place to go for the complete picture, Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues: Stevie Ray Vaughan works well as a nice single-disc introduction to the work of the influential blues guitarist. Perhaps a few more hits could have been included to make this more attractive to the curious buyer, but with a previously unreleased live version of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and a track listing that dodges much of the 1995 Greatest Hits collection, this does offer an alternative for longtime fans.

Texas Flood was Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble's blistering debut album, released in 1983. Already local legends in Austin, Stevie and the band—a power trio with Chris Layton on drums and Tommy Shannon on bass—became the first unsigned and unrecorded act ever to play the Montreux Jazz Festival. Eventually they caught the eye of legendary A&R man John Hammond, who signed them to Epic. The tunes on Texas Flood comprised Double Trouble's sets during those early days, and are played here with the same unrelenting passion heard in those Austin clubs.

With his astonishingly accomplished guitar playing, Stevie Ray Vaughan ignited the blues revival of the '80s. Vaughan drew equally from bluesmen like Albert King, Otis Rush and Hubert Sumlin and rock & roll players like Jimi Hendrix and Lonnie Mack, as well as the stray jazz guitarist like Kenny Burrell, developing a uniquely eclectic and fiery style that sounded like no other guitarist, regardless of genre. Vaughan bridged the gap between blues and rock like no other artist had since the late '60s. For about seven years, Stevie Ray Vaughan was the leading light in American blues, consistently selling out concerts while his albums regularly went gold. His tragic death in 1990 only emphasized his influence in blues and American rock & roll. This is classic Stevie Ray Vaughan, meticulously remastered from the analog tapes by New York's Sterling Sound. In each set you'll receive Texas Flood, Couldn't Stand the Weather, Soul to Soul, In Step, plus the posthumous classics Family Style and The Sky Is Crying.

Epic's The Essential Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble gathers two discs' worth of the late blues guitarist's work, including many live performances and a few tracks with the Vaughan Brothers. The collection presents Vaughan's material in roughly chronological order, from the 1980 live recording "Shake for Me" to 1989's "Life by the Drop." It also touches on most of Vaughan's definitive songs and performances, including "Tightrope," "Wall of Denial," "Couldn't Stand the Weather," and "Cold Shot," and live versions of "The Sky Is Crying," "Superstition," and "Rude Mood/Hide Away." Though this album doesn't offer anything that hasn't already been released in some form or another, it does go into slightly more depth than several of the other Stevie Ray Vaughan retrospectives by presenting both his greatest studio hits and some of his best live work.

Texas Flood is the first studio album by the American blues rock band Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, released on June 13, 1983 by Epic Records. The album was named after a cover featured on the album "Texas Flood", recorded by blues singer Larry Davis in 1958. Produced by the band and recording engineer Richard Mullen, it was recorded in only three days at Jackson Browne's personal recording studio in Los Angeles. Vaughan wrote six of the ten tracks on Texas Flood. The album peaked at #38 on the Billboard 200 chart immediately after its release. It went platinum in Canada and double-platinum in the United States.

His life was short. His creative heyday only began when he left this world. However, even that Stevie Ray Vaughan left behind, forever inscribed his name in world music. Hundreds of followers, thousands of imitators and millions of fans around the world will never stop to miss a man of medium height, with a hoarse voice, a guitar and a broken torn fingers. Stevie Ray safely be called the most successful incarnation of Jimi Hendrix. Beating of his works, Stevie Ray Vaughan breathed new life into them, a different sound. Numerous performances with the already well-known to the beginning of the 80s musicians such as Albert King (Albert King), David Bowie (David Bowie), Buddy Guy (Buddy Guy), often superseded these musicians on the second plan: alongside Stevie Ray's hard to be the first violin.

This 3 CD collection features a triumvirate of live Stevie Ray shows, all taken from FM Broadcasts, performed throughout the period when his star was shining brightest. The first of these, on DISC ONE of this set, is the early show played at the Spectrum in Montreal, Canada, on August 17th 1984, a few months following the release of his second album, Couldn t Stand The Weather, and thus featuring a number of cuts from that record, but mixing it up too with earlier songs and covers. It should be noted this is a completely different show to that now featured on the Deluxe Edition of Couldn t Stand the Weather, which is the late set, albeit performed on the same day The second show.

1986 was a critical year in the short life of Stevie Ray Vaughan. After struggling to gain any real exposure outside of Texas during the first decade of his career, in the early 1980s the young guitar virtuoso and his recently formed power trio, Double Trouble, caught the attention of powerful music industry players who would propel their musical career forward. By the release of the band's debut album, Texas Flood, in 1983, it was clear that Vaughan not only had the songs, the virtuosity and the charisma to become a global sensation, but also had the potential to revitalize the Blues genre itself.